I appreciate that lots of the people who post here don’t feel that Zeitgeist is worth their time. This is probably true.
However, at least two students in my Comparative Religions class in a secular university have had their faith shaken by the film, so I think that many of us will know people who are affected by the film.
We need to be able to refute the main points.
Several bits have been handled on this site already, but I’d like to add a couple to them.
I hope this will help you answer the questions of people you know and who might ask…
The thesis of the religion section of the film appears (to me) to be as follows:
Christians claim that Jesus was born on December 25, 4 BC. He died on Good Friday of AD 30 and rose 3 days later on Easter Sunday.
These details reflect a long history of sun gods born on December 25, dying and rising again after 3 days.
The reason for these details is the winter solstice.
-the sun rises less each day through the fall, stops at its nadir for three days (December 22, 23, 24) and rises higher each day through the winter & spring.
This is the dying – death for three days – and resurrection of the sun.
Christians wait until Easter to celebrate this resurrection because Easter is close to the Vernal Equinox when the light begins to win out over the darkness.
For some reason the filmmaker thinks that Jesus is nevertheless especially significant because he ushers in the Astrological Age of Pisces, just as Moses had ushered in the Åstrological Age of Aries. I’m not sure why s/he cares, given that Jesus is portrayed as a myth anyways.
There are, as I see it, two main problems with this argument.
- Jesus was not born on the 25th of December, and the Bible makes no such claim, anywhere.
Christians (no earlier than the 4th century, when Christianity became the dominant religion in the Roman empire) began celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25 precisely because the pagans around them were celebrating the rebirth of the sun god.
Christians decided to hold an alternative celebration in competition with the pagan celebration.
- Easter doesn’t happen at the vernal equinox.
Detail problems:
- The three kings comes from a Christmas carol – they are nowhere mentioned in the Bible. The Bible talks about an indeterminate number of sages from the east.
- Astrology doesn’t own the number 12, so thinking that the 12 disciples or the 12 tribes of Israel refers to the 12 constellations is arrogant nonsense.
A second major issue is his allegation that there are no reliable historical accounts for the existence of Jesus. Speaking as a professional historian, there is as much reliable historical evidence for the existence of Jesus as there is for the existence of the Greek poet Homer. Just because Matthew, Mark, Luke and John believed that Jesus was the Messiah doesn’t discredit them as historical witnesses.
The way Zeitgeist dismisses Josephus as a forgery is highly problematic. Josephus is controversial, but the controversy is largely circular in its reasoning. The reasoning goes: Josephus couldn’t have said the things he did about Jesus because no Jew would say those things about Jesus. Therefore it must be a later insert by a Christian.
But had Josephus not mentioned Jesus it would be evidence that Jesus did not exist.
You can’t win that argument because it’s stacked, and bad logic.
Most reputable historians believe that the Josephus account is authentic.
Most reputable historians believe that the accounts found in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John reflect the accounts of witnesses and oral/MS tradition recorded within a century of Jesus’ life.
Hope this helps…
NL
